The long weekend is drawing to an end, an overindulgent weekend filled with chocolate, chocolate and more chocolate, not to mention the booze! Daylight savings have just finished for another year, it’s 6pm and we’re all exhausted. A bowl of steaming humble soup is just what we need to settle back in to home after […]
Author: locorcoran
baked fish w a crispy breadcrumb topping | good friday meal | friends for dinner
For centuries, people have been keeping with tradition and eating fish on Good Friday. The Sydney Fish Markets sell more seafood on this day than any other day of the year! One of these years I’m going to go and experience it for myself. Apparently the fish markets on Good Friday doesn’t make for a […]
spaghetti w tuna + chilli + garlic
This is THE quickest, easiest and tastiest pasta dish going round. The recipe was given to me by my brother Pete and his wife Amy. If you know me – or Pete, you know that we like tuna. Pete reckons he has eaten a tin of tuna for his lunch everyday for the past 15 […]
grilled haloumi w strawberries + pinenuts + mint
Since I’ve started writing this blog I’ve had a growing number of people contact me letting me know that they’ve cooked one of the dishes I’ve made. This gives me so much satisfaction and keeps me motivated to continue to share what I’m cooking. That’s what it’s all about. If I can post a recipe […]
succulent lamb chops | oven baked w brown sugar + tomato + spices
There’s absolutely nothing fancy about these lamb chops. They’re not much to look at, but oh my gosh do they taste good. This dish was around long before food photography was even a thing! For as long as I can remember, Mum has made these chops and Corks has many a happy memory eating this […]
prawns on the barbie | thai style
“I’ll slip another shrimp on the barbie for ya”, promises a young Paul Hogan in the 1984 Australian tourism ad designed to get American tourists to visit our remarkable ‘land down under’. Before this iconic campaign, Australia ranked number 78 on the most ‘desireable holiday hotspots’ in the States; which climbed to number 7 shortly after […]
bunny biccies | cut out butter biscuits
Friends often say to me: “How do you cook with the kids all the time”? “They make so much mess”! “They get in to absolutely everything”. “It’s so much quicker to cook when they’re at school/asleep/out of the house”. I reckon you’ve got to go in with low expectations. Yes. There will most likely be […]
easter egg nests | for little hands to make
The girls’ friends, Ella and Harry have just left our place. We’ve had a busy morning in the kitchen making some bunny biccies and these sweet little bird’s nests. Shrek is on telly, the weekend is nearly here and we’re off to dinner tonight as soon as Cork Daddy walks in the door. How good! […]
vermicelli noodles w salmon + coconut broth
Thaigga Thai is our family’s favourite restaurant in Wagga. The girls love it because of the giant mural of a tiger on the wall. I’m sure the other diners love listening to their constant “roaring” from the moment we walk in, to the moment we walk out, too. All they need to do now is […]
lamb cutlets w sumac + sweet potato cous cous
So you’re staying with friends for the Easter long weekend. Obviously you turn up with some booze, but what is a nice “thanks for having me” gift that you can haul in the car that won’t melt in the boot? Why not a lovely little jar of spice? Mim put me on to ‘the Spice […]
curried beef pie | the ‘pheobe’ pie
The best thing you can do for someone who has just welcomed a new baby in to the family is cook something for them. I remember the way I’ve felt over the years when friends have dropped some home cooking off to my door in times of need (or just in times of lack of […]
the perfect dipping sauce for oysters | ‘tiverton’ sauce
Is there anything better than a freshly shucked oyster matched with a glass of champers on a Saturday arvo? We’ve just spent the weekend surrounded by great friends in the most picturesque setting imaginable, ‘Tiverton’, the Shorten’s gorgeous seaside farm in Central Tilba on the NSW south coast. I had to keep pinching myself as it was […]
raspberry + banana cake
“Yuck!” Charlotte pipes up as she watches me peel the severely overripe, browned (ok, more like blackened) bananas for this cake. If you’re anything like me, you’ll often have fruit left in the fruit bowl that has gone a little past its use by date. But don’t worry about your bananas. Once matured, they have […]
zucchini + corn fritters | meat free monday
Who’s up for a little fritter trivia? The word fritter come from the Latin word, frictura, which means ‘to fry’. dictionary.com defines the word, that to ‘fritter’; is to waste time, money, or energy. Well they got it right there. Yes, a fritter is only a fritter if you fry it in oil. But, no – […]
cajun chicken burger
Now be warned, this recipe has Iceberg in it (Cork Daddy’s favourite). The old Iceberg gets a bit of a bad wrap of late. Its the daggy older sister who has been around forever; before the days of the younger and more fashionable kale, rocket and cos. The shredded fresh lettuce with the fieriness of […]
perfect mashed potato
A veggie dish so good, the Wiggles made a song about it. I made mashed potato this afternoon ready for dinner and Miss Charlotte pipes up; “Thanks for making mashed potato Mummy!” with the same excitement as if I had just offered her a rainbow ice-cream covered in sprinkles with a chocolate egg on top! “Can […]
traditional meatloaf
Every time I hear the word ‘meatloaf’ I think of Will Ferrell in Wedding Crashers; “Mom! The Meatloaf!” Will and I have something in common. Both our mums make a wicked meatloaf. Meatloaf sandwiches are THE best food on the planet; (I fear I say this a lot!) Mum used to make them with toasted […]
pumpkin, silverbeet + ricotta lasagna
Lasagna on the menu tonight but there’s no mince in the trolley. Three words. Meat free Monday. So it’s pumpkin, silverbeet and ricotta instead. A match made in heaven. Please do not underestimate this lasagna due to the absence of meat. This dish has more flavour in one bite than a whole plate of my […]
kale w pine nuts
KALE. You either love it, or hate it. A popular food movement over the past few years, I’ve actually seen t-shirts that sport “I Heart Kale” on them. I posed the question around the dinner table on Friday night; “have you cooked with kale before?” The answers were definitely skewed more towards NO. “I don’t […]
bircher museli
How good is Bircher museli!? If you haven’t had it before, you should have a crack at making your own. It’s so easy and the perfect solution to get you out of that breakie rut I often find myself in. Bircher is great for a kids party on a Saturday morning or to have in […]
